Monday, May 18, 2009

Letter to W.H. Auden

Letter to W.H. Auden

“Auden defends Byron by asserting the value of light verse and by using him to authorize the coexistence of genuine political concerns with comic art.”—Richard Bozorth, “Politics and Authority in the 1930s,” Auden’s Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality

I see your face—on every channelThe Drudge Report—and every panelFOX-News—interviews you regularlyWintering in Cadiz—caught at the wheelWhizzing around—in your maroon MercedesLord Byron—the Don Juan of the jet-settersDining with Miss Capote—in ManhattanHighbrow circles—at ivy-league PrincetonLicking your asshole—if you let themYour Picasso portrait—better than Stein’sShowing you arm-wrestling—with ToklasSharing tea, marmalade—and a hookahWith Miss Proust—and Miss Bowles thereVacationing in Marrakech—then touringThe Acropolis—with Chester and some ofThose Greek white-trash—soldiers of hisHow I’ll love it much better—when he getsOld and loses his looks—when the tiresomeKissing is done—and we can be comfy againDoing crossword puzzles—after dinner inOur little Austrian getaway—all mine